I have been involved in photography and the creative process for over 30 years. In the last five years I have converted to digital and have found a renewed interest in the artistic capabilities digital opens up. This site represents my more artistic endeavors. I hope you enjoy these images as much as I enjoy making them.

My Story

I have always had a fascination with and love of photography, and the impact of a beautiful image. Like many I would view in wonder at the beautiful black and white images of the masters, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Edward Weston, Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, Edward Steichen, Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus, Dorothea Lange, W. Eugene Smith and Sally Mann to name a few. And more contemporary photographers like Jerry Uelsmann, Mitch Dobrowner, Marco Glaviano, Annie Leibovitz, Herb Ritts, Ralph Gibson, and many, many more. Each with their own unique style, styles I admired. I hoped some day to come close to the quality of those images.

And so I started my own journey. Taking the fundamentals I already knew, learning the details of DSLR camera operation, capabilities and post processing, and those images I imagined in my mind, I set out to make art. It is a journey I feel I have only just begun, with my best images yet to be created.

All images copyrighted: Joe Vargas

My Art

Art for me is a journey. With each image I make, I learn something about myself as each image reveals itself; the culmination of the image in mind, the environment, the model, if there is one, and the inspiration of the moment.

My more artistic images tend to have a melancholy about them reflecting a feeling of isolation, abandon and reflection. I don't know what this says about me but I believe that is part of the journey.

My creative process is equal parts of pre-visualization and inspiration, reacting to what the location presents with respect to lighting, conditions, and mood, or in the case of a model, the mood, expression, posing and personality they bring to the experience. It is that interaction that I believe is a critical element to creating the essence of the image.

I invite you on my journey.I hope you enjoy these images as much as I enjoyed making them, and I hope that the images I make help to inspire others, as the images I have seen inspired me.